What do yoga teachers listen to?

As a yoga teacher, I appreciate a good Zen Playlist for my classes. Often I'll use a premade playlist on Spotify made by someone else, typing in "Yoga," seeing what comes up and playing around with it. While this has led me to discover some sensational music, sometimes I've been caught out by not listening to it before class. We'll just be getting into a playlist, and it will throw up something unexpected. Like the time I put on an upbeat vinyasa flow playlist that chose Savasana relaxation as the perfect moment to start blasting out a racy and obscene Rhianna track. I had to leg it to my phone to change it over to something a little more relaxing and apologise to the class! To avoid future embarrassment, I've started to create my own collections of my favourites.

I mainly teach beginners and try to make my classes as accessible and modern as possible. I like to ease people into yoga. There's plenty of styles out there that are very traditional, spiritual, or new age, which many yoga playlists pander to. Classical music, traditional Indian music, windchimes, chanting, or binaural beats are all pretty popular. These are all great options, but they weren't resonating with me and my teaching style.

I sometimes struggled with imposter syndrome and thought that maybe my style wasn't "authentic" enough, even down to my music choices, but I've found that it's more about being authentic to yourself. There's no rule about what music you can and can't practice yoga to. And if it resonates with me, what's to say it won't resonate with others. So, I forgot about what the playlists "should" be. Instead, I listened to my heart and what fills me with light.

I like to go for acoustic, folk, ethereal, and indie tracks. Songs you may have heard before and that you can relate to. Music that's sweetly upbeat to lift you, fill you with positivity, and inspire you. Songs with gentle lyrics and soft vocals to carry you on their sails through class, to calm and to sing you a sweet lullaby into your final relaxation.

I want to give a small handful of my favourites songs from the playlist a mention.

Fallingwater - Maggie Rogers

She is an American singer-songwriter who has synesthesia, which allows you to see music as swirls of colour. I would love to see what she does when she plays her beautiful music. This song is smooth, fluid, and ethereal that makes you want to swirl your body round in a figure of eight.

Wake Me - Message To Bear

This is the alias of Jerome Alexander, an English composer, and multi-instrumentalist. I come back to this track time and time again for my classes. I love the birds' tweeting in the background, gorgeous piano, strings, and lilting vocals. It makes me feel like I'm floating away in a fairy glen.

Notion - Tash Sultana

I fell in love with Tash Sultana's music back when I was backpacking her home country of Australia. There's no band. It's just her, multiple instruments, haunting vocals, and a loop pedal. She creates music like nothing I've ever heard before, and this is one of her particularly dreamy tracks.

Laps Around The Sun - Ziggy Alberts

Another Australian singer-songwriter with light, cheerful music that makes you feel the sun on your skin and sea salt breeze enter your lungs if you close your eyes.

Painter (Valentine)- Lapsley

No yoga playlist would be complete without Lapsley, an English songwriter, singer, and musician. This is only one of many of hers, which I love for my classes. It feels like a bedtime lullaby, it's incredibly dreamy and the perfect song to carry you into Savasana. The final relaxation posture for meditation.

Here is my unique Zen Playlist on Spotify

While sometimes I enjoy practicing yoga in silence or outdoors, listening to nothing but the sounds of nature, I will always come back to music. I love for my body and my practice to become one with the rhythm and melody of the music. It feels natural. There's beauty in that. 

"Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul creates the symphony of life."

– B.K.S. Iyengar.

I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I do, and it gives your practice some harmony of the soul.

Georgina Nelson. Traveller. Writer. Photographer. Yoga teacher.

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